The Immigration and Refugee Board yesterday said it needs private sector help to clear a backlog of “rising refugee claims” that is nearly four years’ long. The Board chair earlier described the volume as a shock: "They come, they ask for refugee status, they have to prove their claim." READ MORE
The federal prison system is so costly it is “not sustainable,” says an Access To Information memo. Thousands of cells sit empty in penitentiaries with fixed costs that now average a record $436 daily per inmate: 'Reduce the number of low-performing, high cost assets.' READ MORE
The health department in a memo to Minister Marjorie Michel says it has no legal duty to negotiate pharmacare agreements with provinces or territories. “We are focused on fiscal discipline,” said the note dated 14 months after Parliament passed Bill C-64 An Act Respecting Pharmacare: "To be clear, the Act does not require the Government of Canada to sign bilateral agreements." READ MORE
CBC News coverage of the Middle East is systemically pro-Palestinian with omissions, "emotional language" and selective facts that skew the audience's perception of Israel, a B’nai Brith Canada report said yesterday. The network has denied its coverage is biased: "My perception is we are working very hard." READ MORE
Canada Student Loan write-offs cost taxpayers more than $200 million in 2024 despite a permanent waiver on interest for borrowers, says a federal briefing note. Individual student debts average $15,578 on graduation, according to the Department of Social Development: "The value of unpaid student loans will continue to grow." READ MORE
An employer cannot be faulted for following public health advice even if it’s unsound, the British Columbia Court of Appeal has ruled. The decision followed four years of hearings into a vaccine mandate enforced by taxpayer-owned Purolator Inc.: "It continued to be reasonable for Purolator to rely on public health authority statements about effectiveness even if, as a matter of objective fact, vaccination had ceased to be effective." READ MORE
The Commander of the Royal Canadian Air Force is hiring a consultant to work as her private secretary at an undisclosed cost despite cabinet's promise to cut spending on consultants, records show. The military did not say why none of its current 93,000 armed forces and civilian employees were incapable of filling the post: 'We are cutting management consultants by 20 percent.' READ MORE
My mother knew John A. Macdonald very well. She said, “He could make you laugh at the drop of a hat.” He had snappy comebacks he used at the appropriate time. He had a very good way with people, to make them feel he was going to be a friend. He just seemed to have that magnetism. Was he an alcoholic? Today we would classify him as a borderline problem drinker. If he drank as much as everybody said he did, and accomplished what he did, I wonder what he would have done if he’d been sober all the time.
